Diarrhoea is the biggest child killer in Africa and 88% of those deaths can be attributed to poor sanitation.

Barbara Frost of Water Aid says it is women and girls who are most affected.

"The crisis falls mainly on women and girls because it is them who carry the water and it is the women who look after children who are getting sick with diarrhoeal diseases, often through water infected with faecal material because of poor sanitation," she explains.

Carrying water and looking after sick children means women are unable to earn livelihoods and girls drop out of school when they reach puberty because of inadequate sanitation facilities at school.

Ms Frost emphasises how the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) are heavily dependent on each other to succeed.

"If children do not retain food because of diarrhoea their development is arrested," she says.

November 14, 2011

”Access to basic education in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains poor, with up to seven million children across the vast country out of school - despite a 2010 government decision to make primary education free.”